Editing Mirror (section)

==== Paintings ====
[[File:Titian - Venus with a Mirror - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Titian]]'s ''[[Venus with a Mirror]]'']]
Painters depicting someone gazing into a mirror often also show the person's reflection. This is a kind of abstraction—in most cases the angle of view is such that the person's reflection should not be visible. Similarly, in movies and [[Photography|still photography]] an actor or actress is often shown ostensibly looking at him- or herself in a mirror, and yet the reflection faces the camera. In reality, the actor or actress sees only the camera and its operator in this case, not their own reflection. In the psychology of perception, this is known as the [[Venus effect]].

The mirror is the central device in some of the greatest of European paintings:
* [[Édouard Manet]]'s ''[[A Bar at the Folies-Bergère]]'' (1882)
* [[Titian]]'s ''[[Venus effect|Venus with a Mirror]]''
* [[Jan van Eyck]]'s ''[[Arnolfini Portrait]]''
* [[Pablo Picasso]]'s ''[[Girl before a Mirror]]'' (1932)
* [[Diego Velázquez]]'s ''[[Rokeby Venus]]''
* [[Diego Velázquez]]'s ''[[Las Meninas]]'' (wherein the viewer is both the watcher - of a self-portrait in progress - and the watched) and the many adaptations of that painting in various media
* [[Paolo Veronese|Veronese]]'s ''Venus with a Mirror''

Artists have used mirrors to create works and to hone their craft:
* [[Filippo Brunelleschi]] discovered linear perspective with the help of the mirror.<ref name=camp2014/>
* [[Leonardo da Vinci]] called the mirror the "master of painters". He recommended, "When you wish to see whether your whole picture accords with what you have portrayed from nature take a mirror and reflect the actual object in it. Compare what is reflected with your painting and carefully consider whether both likenesses of the subject correspond, particularly in regard to the mirror."<ref name=mccur1938/>
* Many [[self-portraits]] are made possible through the use of mirrors, such as great self-portraits by [[Dürer]], [[Frida Kahlo]], [[Rembrandt]], and [[Van Gogh]]. [[M. C. Escher]] used special shapes of mirrors in order to achieve a much more complete view of his surroundings than by direct observation in ''[[Hand with Reflecting Sphere]]'' (1935; also known as ''Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror'').

Mirrors are sometimes necessary to fully appreciate art work:
* [[István Orosz]]'s [[anamorphosis|anamorphic]] works are images distorted such that they only become clearly visible when reflected in a suitably shaped and positioned mirror.<ref name=orosz2015/>